A known door lock device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-081237 includes a lever attaching surface including a base piece and a side piece formed by bending a side end of the base piece perpendicularly. The known door lock device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-081237 includes an open lever unitarily rotatable with an engagement member, a connect lever moving to two positions, and an outside lever and an inside lever connected to a release operation means provided at inside and outside of the door, which are provided at the lever attaching surface. The outside lever is secured to the lever attaching surface with an axis arranged in the fore-aft direction. The connection portion is connected to an outside handle serving as the release operation means provided at the outside of the vehicle door via a wire. The connector lever is secured to the lever attaching surface with an axis arranged in the fore-aft direction so that the connector lever is rotatable to be the two positions including a locked position and an unlocked position. In the meantime, the inside lever is secured to the side piece with an axis in the direction of vehicle inside and outside, that is, in the right-left direction. The connection portion is connected to an inside handle serving as the release operation means provided at an interior side of the door via a wire.
With the construction of the known door lock device described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-081237, the outside lever and the connector lever operate at a plane surface arranged approximately perpendicular to the axis in the fore-aft direction. Further, the inside lever operates at a plane surface arranged to be approximately perpendicular to the axis in the right-left direction. In other words, because plural levers operate at different plane surfaces in the different directions, there has been the limitation for reducing the size in each direction of the door lock device (i.e., an extending direction of the plane surface approximately perpendicular to the axis in the fore-aft direction and an extending direction of the plane surface approximately perpendicularly to the axis in the right-left direction) in order to ensure the operation range of the levers.
A need thus exists for a door lock device with smaller size.